Sony has brought its unlimited music streaming service in Australia and New Zealand, launching on Friday its Music Unlimited that opens the door for accessing more than six million songs from its wide-ranging catalogue.

First offered in Europe last year, the service will also simultaneously tap American audience and directly compete with Apple's iTunes for as low as $4.99 to a high of $12.99 though unlike in iTunes, users would not be allowed to download their choice cuts and instead permit them only to stream music with reasonable liberty of choice and navigation.

Sony Computer Entertainment Australia head Michael Ephraim said on Friday that the new system offers a new dimension of distribution for the music and movie industries and he expects that content providers should "be very supportive of the new model."

Sony's launch came following Motorola's announcement earlier that Google is already working on its own music service that would facilitate content hosting on its Android devices, which further tighten the gathering competition being arrayed against iTunes.

In strictly guarding its revenue piggy-bank, Apple rejected Sony's e-book apps in January as the giant tech firm alleged that the product was redirecting users from its internal system, a move scored by Ephraim as a way of hijacking iTunes' content providers.

In protesting the decision, Ephraim even hinted that Sony may pull out its line of artists from iTunes but Sony Network Entertainment COO Shawn Layden countered his pronouncement and dismissed the suggestion, stressing too that giving up lucrative revenues offered by the iTunes system is an option for Sony at this time.

The rebuke compelled Sony Australia to issue clarification that Sony Music will continue its partnership with iTunes despite the statement made by Ephraim, which Layden described as words that "were either taken out of context or the person who spoke them was unclear on the circumstances."